Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Just Can't Get Over The Look In His Eyes
Episode Date: May 18, 2024Rudrani is with a meditation group in Mumbai India when terrorists attack the hotel she is staying at. Shot in the arm and leg, Rudrani is left for dead after witnessing the deaths of the other member...s of her group. Tracey is 14 years on when her house catches fire in the early hours of the mourning. Tracey wakes her 11-year-old brother but the two are unable to make it out of the house before they pass out from smoke inhalation. Teresa’s husband Scott is electrocuted at work changing his personality into an aggressive and controlling partner. When their marriage is unable to survive the strain of Scott’s behavior, he attempts to kill Teresa and himself. Huggies: Head to Huggies.com to learn more! June’s Journey: Discover your inner detective when you download June’s Journey for free today on IOS and Android! Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Viator: Download the Viator app now and use code VIATOR10 for 10% off your first booking in the app! Find the perfect travel experience for you! Do more with Viator.
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so unexpected. Former high-ranking police official, he'd run for sheriff at one point.
Law enforcement personnel were pretty much split down the middle over whether or not
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I've asked myself so many times, what in the world happened?
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This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. I was soaked in blood and bone and brain.
Real people.
I thought, if I push myself on top of him,
it'll take one whole body for this fire to burn through.
Who faced death.
That gun was going to come straight down and finish me off.
And lived to tell how.
I just can't get over the look in his eyes and me pleading and begging.
This is I Survived.
November 2008 in Mumbai, India.
Rudrani is in India with a meditation group.
We were located in Mumbai, used to be Bombay, and we were staying in one of the nicest hotels
there, the Oberoi Hotel.
Rudrani and five of her companions were having dinner in the hotel
dining room. I got served my food, and then very shortly afterwards, we heard gunfire,
but it was in the distance, and Michael said, well, that sounds like gunshots,
and I agreed with him. I said, well, it does sound like gunshots, and he goes, well, I believe I'll
go check and see what that is all about.
So I watched him walk out into the lobby. The restaurant was wide open to the lobby and kind of disappear around the corner. And we resumed our talk. And he came back maybe
two or three minutes later and assured us that everything was OK. He said that the hotel staff
had said that it was just a bunch of hooligans. And for us not to worry about it, to please just enjoy our meal, I suppose
I could have counted to 30.
And that's when we heard the gunfire in the hotel.
And it was deafening.
It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.
Two terrorists had stormed the hotel,
firing automatic rifles.
I told everyone, get under the table now,
which is what we did.
And before I knew it, the gunfire was on us.
And I knew I'd been hit.
I felt my arm, a very sharp pinch, and a lot
of casings hitting me.
The terrorists were shooting staff and patrons
in the restaurant.
Everyone was in a panic.
There was a lot of screaming and broken glass,
loud explosions, continuous range of bullets.
And as a meditator for many years,
I had never experienced anything like this.
Time seemed to slow down.
Rudrani couldn't see the terrorists
from under the table. Until I actually felt a foot standing on my pants leg.
He was stepping over my body and firing at the same time.
When you've got someone standing that close to you,
literally one leg between yours,
firing at the room that loud.
And your initial response would be to jump.
And yet I knew that if I did that,
that gun was going to come straight down
and finish me off.
Under the table with Rudrani were five people
from her meditation group.
I remember Naomi. and she was frightened,
and she was screaming.
13-year-old Naomi was with her father, Alan.
And he was trying to get her attention,
trying to get her to settle down in a very firm and loving tone,
just saying her name over and over.
My immediate concern was, we need to stop talking
and stop drawing attention to ourselves.
It's obvious that they're shooting at us.
So I reached out.
He was right next to me,
and I put my hand on the back of his neck.
And I was like, Alan.
And he looks at me.
He doesn't say anything.
But we locked eyes,
and I just said,
we need to be in our stillness.
And so he kind of gave me a knowing look, like he knew what I was saying.
And at that moment, I just buried my head down to play dead. And in seconds, I felt his body.
I felt the impact of the bullet in his head, and I felt his body release.
Alan and his daughter Naomi had both been shot dead.
Then I felt the warmth of blood soaking my head.
Rudrani's friend Linda was still alive under the table.
I looked over at Linda, and she looked back at me.
It was a look of horror. I had my head wrapped in white cloth, head shawl.
And I couldn't see it, but I was soaked in blood and bone
and brain.
And I took her hands, and I said,
we really need to be quiet now and play dead.
There was still a lot of chaos going on,
a constant barrage of bullets coming definitely
from more than one source.
It was like we were suddenly in a war zone.
An automatic rifle shoots 800 bullets a minute,
and so it's deafening.
There was a lot of screaming and broken glass.
I didn't know how many gunmen there were at the time because it was continuous.
Suddenly we hear a voice coming from the kitchen and we believe it was one of the chefs or
maybe one of the workers there.
And he called out to us, if you want to live, you better come now.
The terrorists had moved from the restaurant to the hotel lobby.
There was the gunfire from the middle of the lobby.
So it was perfect timing for us to make a move.
So I tried to get up, and my arm was twitching, and I looked over at my arm, and I could see
inside where I'd been hit in my arm.
Then I noticed that I had been shot in my leg, and there was a lot of blood, and I could see inside where I'd been hit in my arm. Then I noticed that I had been shot in my leg,
and there was a lot of blood.
And I tried to put my hand, but my hand was shaking.
I thought, maybe I can crawl across the floor.
And I tried that.
And this is all a matter of seconds.
And then I don't know what made me think of it.
I just said, drag me.
And I threw my hands up. My savior from the kitchen runs out of safety
and takes my wrists and drags me to the kitchen.
And I remember all these bullet casings, very warm still.
And I remember as he was dragging me, seeing, ah,
my head was turned over.
And my point of view is the ground.
And there were so many bodies.
And that's when I knew, no one's going to get out of here.
They don't want anyone to get out of here alive.
So he pulled me into the kitchen and immediately dragged me
in far enough where they could shut and barricade
the door. At that time we heard the gunfire coming back towards the restaurant and they began firing
at the door. I'm noticing now that I'm in a giant pool of blood and I'm trying to figure out what
the best course of action is. I'm on the floor and I hear something hit the wall and so I kind of look and
I see what looks like a miniature cylindrical like a coke can silver and it's clicking. A grenade had
been thrown into the kitchen through a small service window. And I thought it's a it's a
grenade and so I all I said was live grenade and point, somebody said, we've got to get out of here.
I knew I couldn't move.
And I'm like, go.
It's going to go off any second.
You know, what are we going to do?
And two, I guess, of the waitstaff scooped me,
one under this arm and leg and one under the other arm and leg,
and took me down this spiral staircase.
And we all went down these steps, and there was an exit door,
but it was locked.
So the other gentleman started just throwing his entire body
up against the door.
And I thought, he's going to break his shoulder.
I mean, he was just hurling himself.
And the noises he was making, you
could tell that it was painful and
finally the door goes flying open and they're still holding me and we walk out into the street
and that's when i realized oh my goodness it's it's not just in our hotel it's everywhere mumbai
is under attack terrorists had begun a series of attacks across the city of Mumbai. You could hear bombs going off, or at least explosions.
People screaming in Hindi, screaming in fear.
It was just total chaos.
It was like we were suddenly in a war zone.
There were cabs running all over the place.
They were trying to stop a cab.
They didn't want to stop.
And so the one that broke the door down,
he comes and he kind of hits one of the cabs on the hood
and gets him to stop.
And they open the back seat and I get in.
That's when I can really see what's happening with my leg.
And I'm now using my left hand to cover it.
The gentleman gets in the front seat
and starts speaking in Hindi to the driver.
And they take us down the road to Bombay Hospital.
After the cab ride to the hospital,
where they finally got me on a gurney,
my legs started to remind me that something had happened.
And then the pain was excruciating.
Rudrani had been shot through the femur bone in her thigh.
She borrowed a cell phone to ring her husband
in the United States.
And I dialed the number.
It was like magic.
There was my husband on the other end,
and he was brining the Thanksgiving turkey
for his family in Kentucky.
He knew something was wrong.
I guess the tip off was the very first thing I said,
and I probably sounded kind of shaky,
was, I love you very much.
And he said, I love you too.
What's wrong?
And I said, I love you very much.
And he said, what's wrong?
And I was like, we've been attacked. I've been shot, but I'm okay.
I'm in a hospital. And then I had to have surgery that there was still a bullet in my leg. And he
said to me, all you have to do is stay alive. Rudrani was in the hospital for 12 days before she was able to fly home.
The siege of Mumbai lasted for three days, during which 179 people were killed and over 300 injured.
Nine of the 10 terrorists involved in the attacks were killed.
They range from the age of 18 to 28 years of age.
They look like children.
I survived because I was supposed to.
I'm here.
I can come up with a million answers.
I survived because I had the tools.
I survived because it wasn't my time.
It could have gone either way in a split second.
It went this way.
Life is more joyful today because it went this way.
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Android. February 1987, Long Island, New York. 14-year-old Tracy and her brother have bedrooms
in the basement of their two-story house. Her parents and two younger sisters sleep on the top
floor of the house. In the early hours of the morning, Tracy wakes up.
I sat up in my bed, and from my bed,
I could see into the den.
It was a straight view to the den.
And in the light of the den,
I could see that there was very dark smoke.
When I was a child,
there was a public service announcement on
that Dick Van Dyke did.
They would go through a number of tips tips in case you were in a fire.
Stay low, feel the door, have two ways out.
So I got on the floor and I started to crawl into the den to kind of investigate.
The closer I got to the den, the more thick the smoke became.
Tracy climbed the stairs that led from the den to the main floor.
The door at the top of the stairs was shut.
I felt the door.
It was warm enough for me to know that there was a fire.
I couldn't tell how close it was, but it didn't seem that the door was hot,
so I wasn't too concerned that it was too close.
Tracy went back down the stairs to wake her 11-year-old brother, Terry.
He opened his eyes and looked straight at mine,
and all I said was, there's a fire, come with me.
I told him, stay behind me, stay on the floor.
I proceeded back on my route up the stairs with Terry behind me.
When I got to the top of the stairs this time and felt the door,
it was much warmer than it had been moments earlier.
I felt the doorknob, and it was hot,
not so much that I couldn't hold it,
but definitely retaining the heat because it was metal.
And when I opened the door, unfortunately at that moment,
all the Dick Van Dyke, learn not to burn,
training I had been exercising minutes earlier
went out the window.
The flames were eating the curtains away
and eating the walls of that window, of our picture
window in our living room.
They were up onto the ceiling.
You couldn't even see furniture.
It was just a ball of flames.
I stepped out into the foyer, at which point
I was staring at the back door to the outside.
And to the right of me was the rest of the house.
And the house was an inferno.
There wasn't a wall in our house that wasn't wood.
Not the outside, not the inside.
It was just plain knotty pine with about 10 coats
of shellac on it.
The heat intensity was like nothing
you could ever possibly imagine.
It was roaring.
And when you say it was roaring, the fire is actually loud.
I mean, it's as if it's a monster, and it's growling,
and it's coming to get you.
There's no escaping this.
I pushed Terry with my right hand further behind me
as to shield him from the flames.
I don't think I wanted him to see it, let alone feel it.
Once he stepped out, after I was further into the foyer,
he was in, he could see the fire, he started to scream.
He screamed for my father like you would scream
if somebody was killing you.
I can remember picturing my mother and my father
and my sisters, who were much younger than us, seven and nine,
outside the door.
And the responsibility that goes along
with being the oldest child,
I knew that it was my job to get us out.
I would get Terry and I out.
And with that, I proceeded to try to open the back door.
The heat had buckled the door, and it would not open.
And I kept turning the knob left and right, left and right.
You know, my hands were burnt from holding that door.
I don't, I never took my hands off that knob
because I was so fixated on getting us out.
My only mission was get this door open.
The fire was, was an orange color.
And it was so bright and so intense and so loud. And because it was consuming,
you know, this, you know, bonfire of wood, if you will. I mean, it really was. You might
as well have just, you know, poured gasoline on.
Tracy's brother, Terry, was screaming. He had an undershirt on.
And I can remember he kept pulling it up
and twisting it back and forth around his torso
because it started to stick to him.
Whatever the fibers were, were starting to melt to his body.
And he could feel that the intensity of the heat
was getting to him.
And he just kept screaming, Daddy, Daddy.
However, the more he screamed, the more he sucked in.
Up to 80% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation.
It can cause oxygen starvation, leading to cardiac arrest and death.
I was not happy that he kept screaming, but not for any other reason other than it was,
it was, you know, bothering me and keeping me from my mission.
I wasn't thinking that my father would hear us crying.
I assumed he was already out.
He had gotten my mother out.
He had gotten the girls out.
It was my job to join him.
The fire wrapped around the living room.
So it was all the walls that I could see in front of me
and the side wall, which I lost sight of at some point
through the doorway, were all in flames.
And it just kept getting closer.
After my brother continued to scream,
probably for a good three or four minutes,
I felt his grip on my waist let go.
Terry had fainted from smoke inhalation.
And it was then that I think that I really thought,
oh my god, we're going to die.
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground next to him.
And I was in pain.
There were tiles in the hallway.
My face hit the tiles and chipped all of my teeth.
I strained to look with my peripheral vision
as far right as I possibly could,
because that's where the fire was.
At this point, it had completely devoured our living room
and was on its way to us like a predator.
The heat, I thought, this is it. This is when we're going to die.
Tracy was passing in and out of consciousness.
I kept thinking, I'm supposed to get us out.
And Terry's on the floor. I didn't know whether he was dead or just passed out.
And here I am.
I can't get up.
Again, I had an overwhelming sense of obligation to my parents
to make them proud. So I thought, if I push myself on top of him,
it'll take one whole body for this fire to burn through.
And by that time, somebody must have called the fire
department, or my parents have called them.
I could not lift my shoulders up.
So as the fire got closer, and at this point,
I could feel it felt as if I was burning.
So it was only when I decided, OK, if I really kind of push
myself with my right hand and with my right foot,
I can slide myself over him. And it was at that point when I got on top of him
that the fire had reached the dining room,
and its next destination was us.
I thought to myself, if I could just flop myself over,
because I was on my back, I could cover Terry's body.
I thought the fire would be there in seconds,
the way that it was moving.
And I thought, it'll take an entire body for the flames
to burn through.
And then Terry will be OK.
So I pushed myself on top of him.
And that was the last thing I remember, is feeling him beneath me.
I don't recall how many seconds I was on top of him when I finally, I suffered cardiac arrest and stopped breathing.
The neighbors had seen the flames and called 911. So when the firemen got there, I was, I guess you would say, dead on arrival,
or their arrival,
and when they axed down the door,
it threw the two initial firemen six feet from the house
because of the backdraft.
And the fire then just intensified that much more and probably, although it saved
our lives, burnt us even more severely because it was as if it just fed the oven that we
were in. When I first woke up, I didn't, I obviously didn't really know where I was.
Tracy had been taken to Nassau County Medical Center.
Doctors gave Tracy only a 10% chance of survival.
I underwent dozens and dozens of surgery.
The whole front of me is burned.
65% of me is burned.
Third degree burns and my knee is fourth degree burns.
They took skin from whatever was not burned, so the backs of my calves,
the backs of my thighs, my rear end, and my back. Tracy's brother Terry survived with burns to 20%
of his body. Tracy was not told her parents and sisters had perished in the fire until four weeks
later. Finding out that my parents and my sisters had died
was more terrifying than anything else
that I had to deal with up until that point.
The idea of not having them at 14 was unfathomable.
I specifically remember thinking, my father won't walk me down
the aisle and my mother won't be a grandmother to my children and how I was
so lucky to have such a wonderful, wonderful family and I guess in that regard, I was blessed, because in 14
short years, they made me who I am.
I survived because God has a purpose for me.
And that purpose is to help others, give them the strength and the hope to get through what devastation fires can bring to people's lives. This episode of I Survived is brought to you by Huggies Skin Essentials. Having a baby comes with so many unexpected challenges, but diaper rash shouldn't be one of them.
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October 1990, in Redwater, Texas.
Teresa has been married for six years to Scott, her high school sweetheart.
Scott has an accident at work.
I had been notified that he had been electrocuted.
The ambulance came to the plant, checked him out. Everything was fine.
But however, I do believe that that affected him
because he changed.
He was not like the person that I had married.
As time went on, he became more possessive, more controlling.
Scott has also become aggressive towards Teresa. There was one occasion we were in bed at night, and I woke up during the middle of the night.
I know, there's no doubt in my mind, that I felt a knife going down my back.
I could feel it. And I leaned straight up from the bed,
and the light was on, and he was there. He was just sitting there.
Teresa couldn't see if Scott had a knife.
He said, what are you doing? I said, nothing. But I knew that something was going on. And I just said,
you know what? I said, I think I'm going to go down here in the den. I just don't really
feel well. Teresa went to the den to lay down on the couch. He walked down, stood at the
door, and said, why don't you come on back to bed? I said, no, you know, I'm just going to stay here.
He went on back to bed, and I'm sure at some point I went to sleep,
but I just laid there on the couch not knowing.
I was fearful, but I never thought anything would happen.
A few months later, Teresa returned home after working late.
I come in the door, went in the bathroom, started taking my clothes off, and he just went crazy.
Where have you been? What have you been doing?
I knew then, by the way he was acting, I knew something was fixing to happen.
So as fast as I could, I was trying
to put my clothes back on.
I managed somehow to get to the car, inside the car,
and I'm trying to put the key in,
and his fist comes straight through the driver's side
window.
There was glass everywhere.
There was blood all over my shirt, my eyes.
Our daughter was young at that time, and I had thought, I need to get her.
But I didn't.
I didn't think I could make it back out.
Teresa drove away towards her parents' house.
He had got in his vehicle, and he was behind me.
Scott had their 3-year-old daughter, Samantha, with him.
He followed me to my parents' house. I was still scared to death of him.
My parents were there.
I felt safe.
I knew that they would not let anything happen to me or my daughter.
He was very... begging me to forgive him. He was so sorry. He didn't know what
happened to him, what came over him. Could he just stay there the night with us? And
I gave in and said he could. I was still very angry but scared also.
When I went back home, it was just like another day,
just like nothing had happened.
We did not discuss any of it.
It was just kind of like a done deal and swept under the rug.
As time went on, he was kind of like a Jekyll and Hyde.
I always felt like I was walking on needles,
not knowing if I was going to say something that
would set him off.
I became scared, scared of him, scared to leave him,
scared to stay with him.
Teresa finally made the decision to file for divorce.
He didn't know that I had filed. He would not leave the house. And so I just lived there
in it, not knowing what to do. I felt like if I just stayed there and go through it until the divorce is final,
then hopefully the law could protect me.
Teresa and Scott lived in the same house until two weeks before the divorce was to become final.
During the day on my way to work, I would take Samantha to the Christian daycare where she stayed.
I always took her and I always picked her up.
I was in the bathroom getting ready to go to work,
and he came in there and told me that he was going
to take Samantha to daycare.
And I thought, you know, that is so weird.
But that would be wonderful.
That'll save me some time.
So he took her to daycare.
I was still in the bathroom getting ready for work.
I had on a pink night shirt, rollers in my hair.
Teresa heard a noise behind her and turned to see what it was.
He was standing there.
He had a pistol, both hands on it, straight out.
And I yelled, Scott, what are you doing?
And he shot.
The first time, he shot me in the head right up here.
I'm laying on the bathroom floor, half in the bathroom,
half in the hall.
And I've got my head up pleading, begging.
So I try to get up.
I do get up.
And I grab ahold to the bathroom drawer with this hand.
And he shoots again in my shoulder here.
The face of the drawer on the bathroom,
I pulled completely off when he shot, and we just both dropped.
And my arm, yes, it was attached,
but it felt like it was hanging on by a thread.
I tried to get up again, and he shoots again in my head
right here above my ear.
And I fall back down.
I was trying to talk to him.
I was hollering, what are you doing?
Why are you doing this?
We'll get you some help.
But it didn't matter.
He just kept shooting.
And the floor was cool.
And I wasn't hurting, but I thought,
I can just close my eyes and just die right here,
and I'll be better off.
And then Samantha just kept popping back in my head.
I get up again, and he shoots me in the back.
The one thing I will never, ever forget was his eyes,
because they looked like they were,
he was staring straight through me.
It didn't even look like him.
I knew it was him.
But this wasn't the person that I married.
I just can't get over the look in his eyes
and me pleading and begging.
And he would just keep shooting.
Teresa is near death from seven shots to the head and body.
I knew at that point that I had just better lay here and play dead,
because if I didn't, I would be.
And he said,
I killed you, now I'm going to kill myself.
And even though what he had done to me,
I wanted to say, you know, please don't do this.
But I knew if I said a word, he would shoot me again.
He sat down on the floor and put the gun in his mouth.
So I just closed my eyes, and I heard a shot.
And I waited a few minutes and opened my eyes,
and he was just laid back on his back on the floor with a gun by his side.
Teresa managed to drag herself outside to the car.
I never, ever thought about calling 911.
All I could think about was getting out of the house, away from him.
I couldn't stand up. But I somehow got in the car, backed
out of the driveway, and was driving down the street. I had no idea where I was going.
I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew I was getting away from him.
Teresa flagged down an approaching car.
The driver called an ambulance, and she was taken to the hospital.
Still in my mind, I was still terrified,
thinking that he's not dead.
I'm going to be in this hospital, and I'm going to be in this room by myself,
and he's going to come finish me.
Scott was found dead in the hallway of their home.
Teresa underwent several operations
to remove the bullets.
I still have a bullet in my back,
an eighth of an inch from my spine.
I cannot have surgery to remove the bullet
because they fear I'll be paralyzed from the waist down.
I believe I survived by the grace of God, and I pray that what I say can help someone maybe learn from my experience. My daughter did give me the will to live.
I knew that I had to try for her.
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